


Down Came Your Blackbird

by vtn



Category: Matthew Good Band, The Network (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-11
Updated: 2006-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:52:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt drives to California on a whim and meets the person who, as unlikely as it is, might just save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down Came Your Blackbird

 

_Hate deliver me  
Back into the shiny land of opportunity   
Where I have the name I am_

  
It was raining that night, as it has rained many nights before and will rain many nights again. Forty days and forty nights…well, maybe not, but I could have used a flood to wash away the evildoers. Except that I’d be kidding myself if I thought they wouldn’t take me too. I went to America instead, so I could drown.

Did you know it’s true what they say about America? The stars are all artificial. The sky at night is the color of backlit mud, studded by headlights, taillights, streetlights, red lights and neon lights advertising prescriptions filled 24 hours and all-night video rental. It’s a good place to get lost, America. 

I admit I was the one who told the girl I was seeing to get lost. But to tell the truth, she didn’t seem all that offended. No great loss for either of us. I guess you get what you pay for, in America.

Except when it comes to the gasoline, but I had enough, at least, to drive away like a primal scream across the interstates until I found myself in California, parked in the lot behind a bar where no one would recognize me. Especially not now that we hadn’t toured for the last album, and my hair was getting shaggy again. And, well, I was out of Canada. Once again I’d list the advantages of mostly staying out of the US and it was the same list I recited when I was counting my blessings.

I don’t know what I was thinking, but then, when do I ever? I ordered whatever had the highest alcohol content. I didn’t know how well it was going to mix with some of the meds I was on, but I could have cared less. And I shut my eyes and drank, hoping that at least after a few pints I’d start to taste it.  


~ __  
I’m taking a ride to the liquor store  
I’m looking for a beer and a little bit more  
I’m gonna spend all the money she had…  


  
We were still searching, back then. Looking for the rest of the elements needed to fulfill this prophecy that I was still hard-pressed to believe wasn’t pure bullshit. But at least we found one thing—an old abandoned warehouse, right where it was supposed to be.  _Home_ , we called it. And it was a good area. There was porn. There was beer. There were women. Hell, there were men.

I decided to go through the list in alphabetical order, sporting a homemade ‘Church of Lushotology’ t-shirt and a similarly homemade haircut. Found an affordable-looking bar, chatted up the barmaid—and yeah, I fuckin’ know it’s not politically correct—and got a tall, condensation-coated mug of beer for myself which I drank slowly, enjoying every drop.

I blinked through the very last as I coaxed it down the side of the mug with a tap of my fingers. And nearly coughed. Something struck me about the guy sitting next to me. Maybe it was just my inebriated mind, but he looked familiar. Way too familiar. Someone from Germany? But he didn’t look German. It would fit, though. I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of the inflated egos I came across in Hamburg sprawled over a cheap American bar, staring at a stack of plastic pint cups like it held the mysteries of the universe.

Clearing my throat, I turned to him. Glazed, dark eyes met mine from behind rectangular lenses and a dripping fringe of brown hair.  _He’s not from Germany_ , I realized.  _Maybe MIT? Deadbeat genius?_

“Find the Holy Grail yet, amigo?” I asked. It was a term of endearment I was fond of using on Snoo at the time, because it pissed him off. Recently, he’d learned to combat it with a hearty ‘Heil Hitler, comrade!’ Nothing like a bit of healthy racism between friends, you understand.

“Sock drawer,” the man finished an otherwise garbled sentence. He gave me a grin like a little kid does when he’s showing Mommy his first crayon scribble masterpiece. I raised an eyebrow.

“Do I know you?” I asked him. He gave me a smile like yes but shook his head.

“I’ve never seen you before in my life.” He extended his huge fist and slowly unfolded five long fingers, letting them hang limp until I grabbed his hand in arm-wrestling stance and shook it heartily. I’m not usually the type to make this sort of observation, but my hand was like a child’s in his. Those hands hung from skinny arms, approaching the level of comically too-big.

“Wilhelm Fink,” I said after a beat and lifted my mug to take a drink. Realizing it was bone-dry, I slapped it on the table until I was relieved of it and it was refilled. “Just ‘Fink’ will do fine, though.”

“Call me Matt,” he said almost like it was a question. 

As I let go of his hand, it clicked. Matthew Good, of the Band by the same name. Musician out of Canada. I had a CD somewhere. He had returned to the ‘mysteries of time and space’ plastic cup stack, so I didn’t pry. 

In the end, curiosity was my undoing. Or his. It depends on your perspective. He downed his next pint within seconds, momentarily taking off his glasses to rub at teary eyes, and right now you probably think I’m going to say it was those naked eyes that did it, and I saw the depths of his very soul in them, et cetera. Something flowery like that.

No, I wasn’t paying attention to his eyes. It was the way he slumped back in his chair I think. He was weary. His bones were loose in his skin. He raised his hand, but I pushed it down.

“Next round’s on me.”

He gave me this tiny, wry smile, an ‘I don’t know what kind of crap you’re trying to pull’ smile. The crap I was trying to pull was as follows: I wanted to know what the hell Matthew Good was doing here. Not the part where he was burnt-out and in a bar; that happens to brilliant people often enough—they get tired, they get jaded. I wanted to know why the hell he’d decided to come all the way to Oakland just to collapse on a bar. 

No matter what my motives, he let me order the drinks. I suspect maybe he was too strung-out to order for himself. Taking a sip of his pint, he went off into a drunken tirade. 

“So I’m thinking about how many pints are in a quart are in a gallon, and I’m wondering what my BAC will be after I down six, seven of these?” He gestured to the almighty stack. “And how many gallons of alcohol I’ve put through my system in a lifetime. More than you can count, I bet. I bet you could count all day.”

“Sure.” I tipped my mug a little to him and then took a gulp. “I bet I could match you, but I’m not particularly interested in trying. Too time-consuming.”

Matt blinked sweat out of his eyes. “Where are we?”

“Oakland, California. United States. Earth. The universe.”

“I  _hoped_  I’d stayed in the solar system.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ve been driving a while.”

“Figured.”

Matt didn’t comment, just wiped off his forehead and took another sip. Blinked, then repeated the process. I stopped drinking and started watching him. It must have taken him twenty minutes to finish that pint, and his fingers were splashed enough that I could hear his hand sticking as he pulled it from the table to wipe his forehead a final time and look guiltily at the ceiling. 

He took a deep breath then looked over at me. “I’ve been here too long. I’m so glad you’re here. I need to go home.” I started to back away, but he shuffled toward me. “Please. I’m sorry, I just, I’m drunk off my ass, I need…” He clutched at his mouth and throat like something was attacking him from the inside. “I’m so glad, I’m so glad you’re here, I thought you couldn’t, I, haven’t, take me home.” 

He mumbled and wouldn’t take his eyes off me, but I knew it wasn’t me he was seeing.

“C’mere.” I put an arm around his shoulders, helped him from the seat. His body was warm, too warm, against mine. I could feel his heart beating, and a picture of it rattling around inside his skinny ribcage like a ping-pong ball popped into my mind. “I’ll call a cab.”

He turned to me, a grotesque parody of a smile on his face. There was a split second when I could see something in his eyes, for the first time. A glint of focus stirred up in the pools of cloudy water. I ran a hand through his hair and over his forehead, feeling him lean into the touch. 

“We’re getting you home,” I said, and I meant  _my_  home. 

We made it outside—I paid—and I called a cab, my wallet smarting from the loss. I’d walked there, but I’d have had a lot of trouble walking home and even more trouble carrying Matt. The man was trouble on legs.  


~ __  
Mother told me to be something  
So I'm afraid enough to stay wide awake  
And this ain't real baby, I’ve got a better excuse for myself...  


__  
Breathe.

 _(Can’t.)_

 _Her. Here._  You. Thank you.  _You’ll pay? I’ll pay?_  You’ll pay? Okay.

 _Walking, crawling, floating, flying. Sleeping. Stay awake. They told you to stay awake. If you fall asleep we’ll wake you up and ask you to tell us your name, address, what day is it today. Never know what day it is. What day is it today? Today is the last day on Earth. Can’t tell them that._

 _Stay awake, stay away. Stay away. Don’t take what they give you. Not taking, only giving_  giving you a lot of trouble am I? _Stay awake._

 _Lights, sounds, colors, how the hell did I get here, where the hell did I come from? Like a dream; dream, dream, drained, need to sleep, stay awake. What’s your address? What’s your name? (Matthew F. R. Good, Matt Good, Matthew Good™.) They don’t know my name. No one knows my name here. He can’t know. Who’s he? She. Her. Here. You. Stay. Stay awake._

“…street. I’ll point out the building to you.”

“Need some help?”

 _Help. Hell. Hello! I’m not in the city where the angels are. I’m not far enough south. Imagine the universe a Mobius strip and north of Heaven is Hell, hello, hello, hello time bomb. I’m ready to go off, more like off my rocker, 10th Street Liquors, Pet Emporium, I’m your pet emperor. I’m your pet, inferior._

 _5.50, 5.75, 6.00…_

 _What’s that in Canadian?_

 _6.25_

 _Once there was a man who knew the secrets of the universe and one of them was you don’t need algebra for anything in the real world so he got stuck in remedial math classes so he dropped out and became a taxi driver now he’s got a meter that does all the math for him and he laughs because they were completely right and he’s mostly happy but one of these days he’s going to go off the_

 _6.50_

 _I’m going off the deep end._

 _I’m losing my touch._

 _Touch, reach, (retch), wretch? Wretched, wrecked, shipwrecked, seasick…_

Sick

“You’ll be

 _Black_

“Just got to get

 _Black, red, black_

“How’s that sound?”

Good.

 _Oh, God…_  


~ __  
Hey this Brandon but my friends call me Spike now  
I just moved out my parents' house in Danville  
To this wicked warehouse in Oakland…  


  
I got lucky. The cab driver didn’t ask a lot of questions; he just helped me load up the baggage otherwise known as Matt Good and ignored the delirious rambling coming from the backseat. I, on the other hand, listened intently, only pausing to give directions.  
Mostly Matt read aloud signs, as far as I could tell. Every once in a while he’d respond to something slightly more clearly, asking over and over if he wasn’t giving me too much trouble and then floating back into the predominately unintelligible. 

We’d been riding along in silence for a while, nearing the warehouse, when he spoke again.

“Sick,” was all he said, but that one word communicated everything. I decided I was going to do more than just put him up for the night—well, I’d decided that long ago, but now I was getting the feeling that maybe my original plan wasn’t going to work out after all. My original plan for this sticky, incoherent drunk of a man was sticky, incoherent, drunken sex. 

You’re not surprised, are you? Maybe I didn’t communicate it properly, but my hands ached to touch the man who penned those lyrics, composed those songs. The one album I had accompanied me on many a plane flight, calming me every time I wanted to fly into a fit of rage. When there were late arrivals or crying babies, there was  _Beautiful Midnight_ , and I was thankful. I am not an affectionate man. I’m a sexual creature. It’s how I show my thanks.

That night I wasn’t sure, appealing as the idea of sleeping with a man who was meanwhile tumbling headfirst into a coma sounded. Part of me spoke very strongly, then; a part of me I don’t often listen to. Blame the drink. 

“You’ll be all right. I’ve just got to get you in the shower and run it cold. It’s the best cure, and I promise—” I lowered my voice. “I’ll be on my very best behavior. How’s that sound?” The noise in my head was the noise of a million mental feet giving me a million mental kicks in the mental shins.

“Good,” Matt said weakly. The noise in my head quickly gave way to a much more real noise: Matt’s forehead smacking against the car window. I rolled my eyes.

“Think you can change that passenger charge to a luggage charge?” I said to the driver, who pretended he hadn’t heard me. After this night, I was going to need to borrow some money off the Doctor, whether he liked it or not.

The last time Matt had mumbled the numbers from the meter, he said “six-fifty”. Somehow with all the extra charges the price came to closer to twenty dollars. I have a feeling there’s some kind of mathematical theorem that says if x is the price of a taxi and if y is something reasonable, x equals y squared. In any case, I managed to drag Matt into the warehouse. He opened his eyes all of once, as we were walking past one of the laboratories. 

If I make myself think like Matthew Good, especially a delirious Matthew Good, I can tell you that what he probably saw is a great deal like something from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where the Chief has a drug-induced dream about the room turning into an elevator and taking him down to a factory where they do bizarre and twisted things to people, and carry off the dead ones and chop them into pieces or something along those lines. To us, it’s a great big metaphor. To Matt and the Chief, it’s Hell. 

If I make myself think like Matthew Good, it’s easy to understand why the look in his eyes was intense fear and bewilderment, the fear of a condemned man witnessing his fate. I sighed, he slipped back into unconsciousness, and I carried him the rest of the way, past Van Gough and Z playing cards and the Doctor smoking his pipe by a window. No one noticed me; no one asked questions.

I dumped Matt on the bed, picking up the parts of him that spilled over the side and arranging him into something like a spread-eagle position. His head tipped back and I could see his eyes, pupils rolled back into his skull. 

“Lovely,” I said with a roll of my eyes and a sigh. I took off his wet jacket and slung it over my arm. His T-shirt read  _here comes trouble_. The irony of it all was enough to make me double over with laughter, although the fact that I was still drunk may have helped.

There was no way in hell I would be able to lend this man a pair of pants unless he enjoyed wearing them above his knees, so I put his socks, shoes and pants aside, then on second thought took his T-shirt and underwear too. He also had a watch, but it said it was water resistant. And something about this huge naked man wearing nothing but a watch was amusing enough to make me laugh again.

The Doctor might find some sexual thrill in having a completely unresponsive man naked on his bed. I, on the other hand, was mostly disgusted, especially when a thin line of saliva ran down the side of his chin. 

Well, all right. The fact that he had a huge cock was nice. I did say only mostly.  
I laughed to myself. It really was true what they said about big hands. It was funny, when I was drunk. I half-carried, half-dragged Matt into the little en-suite, altogether too aware of his hot, thick breath on my neck and his limp dick pressed up against my ass. I wondered whether you can get an unconscious man hard, then felt those million mental kicks in the shins again. I swore and then arranged him in the shower, making sure his head tilted forward so he wouldn’t drown or choke on his own spit. 

Then I stripped to my boxers and turned on the water, cold. Shuddered at the contact on my skin, but found that, as overheated as I was, it was a relief. I dunked my head in the spray and watched my hair curl as Matt sat there in a crumpled, shivering heap.

I scrubbed his sticky face and hair clean with a washcloth, but otherwise left him alone to try and wake up. The point wasn’t to  _wash_  him. I had no reason to be babying him. I wasn’t being  _paid_  for this.

Rubbing my arms to try and lower the goosebumps, I settled into comfortable, drunken thoughts about sleeping and the warm robe I had waiting on the hot water pipe. My eyes started to close, but my reverie was broken by a bloodcurdling shriek.

I opened my eyes with a start as Matt flung the freezing washcloth, shouting again.

“What the  _hell_  is this? Where the hell am I? Fuck! Fucking fuck you!” His voice was panicked.

“Stop shouting!”

“Fuck!” He stood and turned his head back and forth, running his hands along the shower walls, pacing back and forth with tiny, rapid steps. “Fuck!”

He reached a hand behind me and the flow of water stopped.

“ _Don’t touch me_!”

Then he shoved me out of the shower and onto the tile floor of the en-suite. Stars winked in front of my eyes, and I pulled myself to my feet.

“Matt, calm the  _fuck_  down or I’m throwing you out on the street in your—”

“Look, whoever the  _hell_  you are—I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to pull, trying to fucking rape me, but get the  _hell_  away for me or I.” He raised his fist. “Will fucking kill you.”

It would have been comical, him standing there naked, threatening me. But the fury in his eyes said it wasn’t. The fury and the animal fear.

“ _Do you hear me_?”

“Matt. Calm down.”

“Fuck!” He buried his hands in his face. “Fuck!”

“ _Stop_  that.” I slammed my hands down onto his shoulders, looking up into his face. “Do you know who I am?”

“No. I don’t.” Matt’s words were clipped. “I don’t know who you are. And I want you to get your hands off me. Or I will hurt you. I will call the police. And they will arrest you for sexual harassment. Or I will get a restraining order.”

“Stop talking.” He didn’t seem to be listening.

“You can’t hurt me. You can’t do anything to me. I don’t know what you put in my drink, but—” His eyes grew wide, then he wrenched out of my grasp and looked around the room. “You  _didn’t_! You’re that guy from the bar, you’re…oh God, I need to lie down…” He pressed his hand up against his forehead like he was trying to mold his face.

“Come here, you motherfucker.” I gave him a shove in the direction of the bedroom. He walked forward slowly, almost mechanically, and sat down on the edge of the bed. I scowled at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and then ripped the robe off of the hot water pipe, walked into the bedroom and threw the robe in Matt’s lap.

He pulled it on after a moment and did the sash up tight.

“I think we need to have a very brief conversation and then I need to leave,” said Matt briskly.

 _Yes, that’s the best idea I’ve heard all night_. I needed to deal with my smarting backside in private; needed to get away from Mr. Here Comes Trouble and preemptively nurse the killer hangover I was going to have the next morning.

“You asked me to take you home,” I found myself saying.

“I didn’t—I thought—”

I shrugged, doing my best to look innocent, even though I knew well what he didn’t do and what he thought.

“Look, you told me a cold shower sounded good. While we were in the taxi? Remember?”

“What taxi?” He glanced at me, a hint of the panicked fear I’d seen earlier in his clouded-over eyes.

Palm, meet forehead. 

“You were very,  _very_  drunk, Matt. You started asking me to take you home. I paid for the drinks. I called a taxi. You said you were sick and I said I’d put you in the shower, and I asked you how it sounded and you said good.” I sighed, giving him a wry smile.

“So you didn’t…?” He ran a hand through his damp hair. “Look, I just—I make an effort not to end up naked in other men’s showers. Maybe you wouldn’t understand that, but—it’s not a thing that I do. Okay?”

“Well, I’m sorry I gave you the benefit of the doubt.” I watched him through the corner of my eyes. “I don’t know you. I don’t know if you’re getting it up the ass on a daily basis or if you want to kill all those faggots trying to subvert the Canadian government. Your clothes are over there.”

“Look.” He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t have any problem with any of that.” He exhaled and his whole body went slack. “I just want to get home tonight. Or—somewhere like it, anyway. Fink—it’s Fink, right?—I’ve been in a dream for the past…” He checked his watch. I saw him raise his eyebrow and knew he must have been wondering why he was still wearing it. “I’ve been in a dream for the past six months, but the past four hours most of all. I hardly remember anything that happened after I drank. I try not to drink like that anymore. But sometimes I do. I think I’m probably going insane. I don’t want to have sex with you, because it will just make everything worse, and I’m sorry. If I’ve shattered your world, there’s probably a number you can call.”

I started to gesture with my hands a few times, trying to form a response in my mind, but nothing came. And then something did come, and it came before I could stop it.

“Perhaps you think I’m evil,” was what came. A quote from one of his own songs. A Boy and His Machine Gun. Every synapse in my body was telling me it was the wrong thing to say, that I needed to take it back before I got into trouble. Too late.

Matt’s hand twitched against the comforter.

“It doesn’t matter if we’re crazy,” I finished the line.

“Fuck,” said Matt softly.

I gave him a shaky grin.  _Perhaps you think I’m evil? Here’s the proof._  His hand twitched again and then he slumped over, disappearing into the robe, terrycloth up to his ears.

“You knew. You knew all along,” he said weakly.

“Yeah. I did.” 

He laughed, sharp enough to drive like a stake through the silence.

“I came to America because no one knows who I am here.”

“Figured.” Matt and I both shifted around in that awkward moment, both of us trying to decide whether or not the conversation was over.

“It’s—it’s only fair if I ask,” he said finally. “Who are  _you_  anyway? I mean, hell, you run into some guy in a red fucking vinyl jacket, you wonder. Where’s this guy get off dressing that way?” I eyed my bare chest.

“Well, seeing as I’ve taken off the jacket, I must not be interesting anymore.” This coaxed a small smile from Matt.

“No,” he said, failing an attempt at deadpan. “You’ve ceased to entertain me and you can leave now.” Running a hand through his hair again, he continued. “But seriously. I mean, you can sit down—or, I guess it’s your bed, so I don’t really need to invite you. But I guess—”

“Just…stop that.” I shook some of the water from my hair, walking over to a chair and finding a blanket to throw over my shoulders. As I sat on the bed, Matt drew his sash tighter yet.

“Preparations done?” he asked.

“Preparations done.” I leaned back a little, bracing myself with my hands. “You want to know about me, huh?”

“Yeah. I want to know about the vinyl, and the eyeliner, and the laboratory thing. And if there isn’t any laboratory thing, then I’ll assume I just dreamed it and you can pretend I never said it.”

“No, that was real. We all dabble in science experiments around here. Nuclear power is my specialty.”

“Who’s we all?”

“There are seven of us here. We’re going to—we’re trying to succeed as a rock band.” I bit my lip as I waited for the response.

“You know, that explains the vinyl pretty well, too.”

“Yeah, you think?” I grinned, exhaling. “And as for the accent, I was born in Germany.” He sighed.

“You know—I used to stand outside, look up at the sky, and think to myself, my life can’t get any weirder than this; that’s my one comfort. But look at that. It did.” He straightened up a little, gazing off into space. No longer drunk. Probably too sober. “Maybe I’m still dreaming all this. Maybe I’m passed out at the bar in a pool of my own vomit. Or maybe I’m still in Vancouver, lying in a stupor on the couch with bad porn or reruns playing on the TV. Honestly, I wouldn’t be that surprised.”

It was a notion I’d entertained before, and I had an answer.

“How do you feel?”

“What do you mean, how do I feel? I feel like shit warmed over.”

“Then you’re not dreaming.” I smirked.

“Point taken.” He inclined his head in a small nod. “Besides, if I were dreaming, it’d have more naked women in it. I think. Probably. Or it’d look like Salvador Dali painted it.”  
“Well, to be fair, the warehouse is kind of Dali. Or maybe de Chirico.”

“Oh, so the radioactive wannabe rock star is also an art aficionado. You’re right. This can’t be a dream. It’s way too weird.” He shook his head, sighed, shook his head again. I inched closer to him.

“So now I want to know. You’re Matthew Good. You’re known and loved.”

“By some.”

“By some. Why are you in fucking Oakland having a nervous breakdown?”

“Well, you don’t beat around the bush.” He rolled his eyes. “You  _really_  want to hear my sordid tale?”

“I’ve already bored you with mine.”

“Not really.  _You_  can do that whole conciseness thing.”

“I’ve got time. And since I’m not getting any tonight, I’ll take the next best thing.” I’d have him give himself to me in words rather than actions.

“Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Okay.

“First of all, I got sick. I used to be a smoker. And it came back and kicked me in the ass. There we were, about to record an album, and all of a sudden I’m in the hospital, hoping I’ll still be alive by the end of next week. I mean, they didn’t say it was life-threatening—but it was some shit in my lungs, and whenever it’s someplace you can’t see, it can sneak up on you. You know?

“And so we went in to record and it was just this screaming match. Twenty-four/seven. So I took a vacation, holed myself up, wrote songs. I came back and I’d told everyone to take a break or something, but I guess even that wasn’t enough, because we were all yelling at each other again. But we had to make this fucking album, right?

“And we did. And now Dave’s gone and left the fucking band, and damn good thing he did, because it was just too much to deal with anymore. It was like his way or my way. It was like there was no ‘us’ anymore. And—” I heard Matt swallow. “I was in the studio late one night, recording, and…I don’t know what happened. But that’s where they found me. They said I was damn lucky I didn’t get a concussion. I say it’s damn lucky I passed out before I could have gotten tired of all the frustration and jumped off the roof. Headfirst.”

“And then you came here.”

“No.” Matt’s voice was bitter, or maybe it was breaking. “That’s when I started drinking again. Six months ago. So we put out the album…” He paused to take a deep breath, and now I could see that he was fighting back tears. “And we didn’t tour…and I’ve been drinking and—and fucking, and I can’t hold a long-term relationship for more than a damn minute and a half before I start thinking, she’s too good for me, or I’m too good for her. And sometimes I’ve just given up and taken girls home, just for a night. I thought I’d never be that guy. Now I’m that guy.

“Fink? I’ve been—this is hard to say, but I’ve started and I’m going to finish this. I’ve been with men.” He looked down at his feet. “But nothing like this. No one’s ever offered to take me home, clean me up. Which is why I guess I should tell you it won’t work. And I can’t get—I can’t do this tonight. I need to get myself together.” He pulled the robe up around his neck.

I raised a hand to his cheek and ran my fingers down his neck, waiting to see what his response would be. He didn’t move a muscle, but his eyes caught mine, and he gave me a lost look. I leaned in closer and brushed our lips together. A peek told me he never closed his eyes, just kept looking lost.

“Fink, I’m fucking freezing. Do you think—do you think I could use the shower?” He stumbled over his words as he spoke. I nodded, patting him on the shoulder. 

“I’d lend you some clothes, but…”

“No, I know.” 

I stood up.

“Shower’s that way,” I said. He shook his head at me, looking incredulous.

“I know.” 

I was about to let him walk off and take a shower. I’d kissed him and it meant hardly anything. 

He’d already given me his story, and with it a piece of his soul, which is not to say I believe in souls. So I was going to let him walk away; I was contenting myself to miss out on being with Matthew Good.

The bastard didn’t give me a chance.

He took my hand.

Pulled me after him.

Matt slipped off his robe, I discarded my boxers, and he, shaking his head with a wry smile, removed his watch. Then we stumbled into the shower, turning the water on hot. The steam and the hot water made my whole body cry out in relief, and I craned up to meet Matt’s lips for a deeper kiss, running my hand over his chest.

Wordlessly, he reached for the soap, lathering his hands and then sliding those long fingers over my shoulders, neck and back, occasionally reaching for my chest to run his thumb over a nipple. I craned into his touch, arousal burning in my gut. I found the soap, lathered my hands, and returned the favor, coaxing a tiny moan from him as I dipped my hand into the small of his back.

The shower filled with steam as hot water washed the soap away down our legs, and we came together for another kiss. He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me toward him so I could feel his erection against my leg, and mine against his. I shifted, the friction enough to send sparks dancing in front of my eyes. Then we kissed a third time, and after that stayed motionless until the shower was so filled with steam, we couldn’t see.

I stepped out of the shower after turning it off, then found two towels and handed one to Matt.

“Your clothes are on the chair—”

“I know.” He walked into the room, glanced around, and then sat on the bed. I would swear he didn’t even blink.

I followed him into the room, confused. 

“Matt?”

He looked up at me from the bed, his eyes empty.

“Fink, I want you to fuck me. I want you to take me hard.”

“Oh,” I said softly.

Then I dropped my towel and stepped forward, pinning him against the bed, separating his legs with a knee and snaking my hand up between them. His eyes fluttered shut and his breathing became heavy, and he ran a hand down my back to tease at my balls from behind. I caught him for a quick kiss, then climbed up onto the bed properly, pausing to find condoms and a bottle of lube in a drawer.

“Here comes the easy part,” Matt said and he snatched a condom from my hands, ripping open the packet and rolling it onto me. He let his fingers rest on my cock for a few seconds, and I arched into his touch; it wasn’t enough; nothing was enough.

“Stop fucking with me,” I growled and grabbed his head in my hands, kissing him roughly and wincing at the nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling of our teeth colliding. I pulled away, moving my lips to his ear. “You’re mine tonight. Lay back and enjoy the show.”

“Keep all hands, arms, legs, and feet inside the ride at—” I wrapped my fingers around his cock.

“Shut up.”

Surprisingly enough, he didn’t say a word; just let his eyes flutter shut and lay on his back, the towel scrunched underneath him and his dick standing erect between his legs. The phrase  _take a picture, it’ll last longer_  came to mind as I flicked my eyes over him, biting my lip appreciatively.

I pushed his legs apart further, crawling in between and leaning down to grind our hips and cocks together, the friction sending a forceful shiver through me. I wanted to get this over with quickly; so did he, judging by the soft whimpers he was making.

Squeezing the cold lube out over my fingers, I slid my hand between his legs, feeling him tense at the touch and then relax as I ran my finger along the inside of his entrance, lifting a hand to touch my hair.

Matt opened his eyes and nodded briskly, then lay back down against the pillows, his eyes so dark I couldn’t see his expression, only the reflection of mine. I grasped his waist in my hands, pushed myself into him.

It was, well, it was sex. I saw stars. I fucked him deep and rough. Apart from a few soft whines, he was very quiet. Motionless.

He came, tightening around me and sending waves of heat through my cock and up into my chest. I reached my hand between us and stroked him until his orgasm ran its course, then pulled out and wrapped my hand around my own cock, jerking myself rapidly.

“Fuck,” I muttered as I came, never taking my eyes off of his. It made it all too easy.

I lay back on the pillow, next to Matt, and folded my arms behind my head, smiling as I slipped into the usual post-coital daze. Lights burned in the corners of my eyes, simultaneously rosy and liquid, neon green.

“Thank you,” said Matt. I waited for him to continue. When he said nothing, I pulled the comforter up over us and shifted to face him, lying on my stomach.

“Earlier, in the bar,”

“Yeah?” There was a note of discern in his voice, but his eyes were still soft.

“When you said ‘sock drawer’. You meant you found the Holy Grail. In your sock drawer.” I laughed, starting off just chuckling but almost doubling over in the end. Matt laughed too, the first time I’d heard him  _really_  laugh all night.

“You’re drunk, Fink.” He slung an arm around my back and we slept that way, all of the things we could be thinking about rendered, for the time being, obsolete.  


~ __  
Her eyes were wide maybe to despise  
Maybe just to look into your   
Headlight morning glow   
And this is it, well this is it   
Prime time deliverance  


  
It was morning, just as it has been morning every day in the past and will be morning every day until the end of the world. I never really understood why people say morning ‘breaks’; it doesn’t break, it  _spreads_  like a stain or a religion or an invasive plant species.

I had this terrible fear, before I opened my eyes, that I was going to wake up and not know where I was. I already couldn’t remember the last night, and I was crossing my fingers and practically doing Hail Marys in hopes that I’d see something that would jog my memory, and that I wasn’t in a ditch or a hospital.

It took about five tries before I was ready to open my eyes and look around.

“Oh my  _fuck_. Where am I?” Then I smacked myself in the forehead, while, continuing that spreading motif, memory seeped back into my mind and filled in all the cracks, leaving only one conspicuous rift in between the bar and winding up in this guy’s shower. But I  _remembered_  not remembering.

The smell of sex expires quickly. The bed I was in was already rank; there was a towel wedged up against my arm that, for reasons I didn’t care to think about, was crusty. My head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds and was made of stale bread, to boot, with a knife wedged between my eyes.

Fink stepped out of the en-suite, wearing a towel around his waist and brushing his teeth.

“’Mornin’,” he said through a mouthful of foam. “How ’you doing?”

“I feel like I’ve been lobotomized, but otherwise, fine, thanks.”

“Shower’s free,” he said, saluting me with his toothbrush in hand. I noticed that it was blue and had a smiling face on it.

“Is that a Thomas the Tank Engine toothbrush?”

“They were cheap at the 24-Hour Mart.” He shrugged and continued brushing. “New place. Stuff’s still in boxes.” I’d been there before, so I left him alone about it and headed for the shower, watching him out of the corner of my eye as he stripped the bed and tossed the filthy sheets in a pile by the door.

The hot water pounding on my back felt good, and this time I actually had the time to scrub myself clean and wash my hair, hoping Fink would forgive me for borrowing a washcloth from the pile on the sink counter. I gargled with a bottle of mouthwash I found and when I stepped out of that en-suite, despite my hangover and generally desperate situation, I was standing up straight and looking the world right the fuck in the face.

It was something I hadn’t done in a long time.

“Well,” I said, “My car’s still in the parking lot at the bar, and I think I’m going to want to be back in Canada sometime tonight. So I guess I’ll get dressed and get going.” Fink finished pulling a T-shirt over his head. I didn’t ask him where he’d spit out the toothpaste. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“Sounds good,” he said. “Thanks for not murdering me.”

“Any time.” I dressed quickly, thankful that Fink had gotten the clothes off me before I’d gotten anything other than beer on them. I pulled on my jacket, remembering from the couple other times I’d been to California that it didn’t really start to warm up till the afternoon, usually.

“The door outside is down the stairs, through the hall and past the big room with the kitchen. Have a good one,” said Fink, walking up and giving me a rough pat on the back. I grinned.

“Yeah, you too.” I gave him a little wave as I walked out the door.

His instructions were right, and his friends seemed to ignore me when I walked past them. I figured they were used to this. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised at the way they were dressed. It looked like the fucking circus, but then this was  _Fink_ ’s House of Surrealism and I wouldn’t have been surprised if I really did see clocks and pieces of meat dripping out of drawers. 

I stepped outside.

And there I was, standing in the middle of a street in Oakland, California.

Have you ever wondered about disappearing? I used to ask myself, if I disappeared off the face of the Earth, who would notice? Would reality rearrange itself around me, leaving the world with only the vague feeling that it was lacking something important,  _something_  just out of reach?

I answered that question that morning. I had, in fact, ceased to exist for six months. Reality sometimes surprises even me with its cleverness; it had spun such an elaborate plan that even I didn’t notice my own disappearance.

But there I was, standing in the middle of the street, and for the first time in six months, I was  _there_. That was  _me_.

I’d love to tell you that day marked the end of all my troubles, and that my band patched itself back together and that we’re now all so happy people are constantly asking us to turn off our blinding auras of cheerfulness. Well, I can’t. The trouble was just beginning, and I don’t think it will ever really be over.

But that’s life. And I can’t say I want it any other way.  


~ __  
Hey there  
Bad seeds  
Let's get it on

 _I'll shut up and keep my end  
Let's get it on  
Our sycophantic replacements are here at last_

 _So impossible  
The doubt in everything, on everything  
Is so impossible_

 _So load up and keep marching  
The push is on_

 _So impossible  
The doubt in everything, on everything  
Is so impossible  
Down came your blackbird to suffer in my arms_  


 


End file.
